


5 Times They Landed In The Wrong Universe, And The 1 Time They Didn't

by hexmaniacchoco



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dimension Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-08-04 18:37:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16352003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hexmaniacchoco/pseuds/hexmaniacchoco
Summary: Jack sort of learns how to open portals to new dimensions, and he can only mostly control it just enough to have no ability to determine where they'll wind up.





	5 Times They Landed In The Wrong Universe, And The 1 Time They Didn't

“Guys! Guys! Look what I can do!”  
  
Jack bounded through the bunker library toward his three adopted fathers with all the energy of a kid excited to show his parents the latest picture he drew. He stopped just a few feet from the table where they sat, eyes coming unglued from their respective books to watch him. Sam was about to ask Jack what it was that he learned to do, but Jack was way ahead of him, so instead he watched along with Dean and Cas in curious confusion as Jack snapped his fingers a couple of times. They each jumped back a little as small sparks erupted from them and a blinding flash of light left in its wake an only somewhat jagged orange streak traveling down the space in front of them. They stared at it, then at Jack, then at each other, then at Jack, then at the light again, and then once more at Jack.  
  
Having already been in the progress of forming words, Sam was the first to speak.  
  
“Jack… Jack is that…?” he attempted to ask. Jack nodded excitedly in response, earning him a laugh from Sam, who continued as the words finally came to him. “An interdimensional portal!”  
  
Dean sat frozen, staring transfixed at the portal, brows drawn together in one part concern and two parts awe. Cas was the next one ready with words, which was only a little due to him being a celestial being.  
  
“Where does it lead to?”  
  
Dean opened his mouth but Jack cut in line with a shake of the head and a rushed “I don’t know yet but guys! Look! I can make portals by myself now!” followed by a beaming smile.  
  
Finally, Dean’s turn.  
  
“Jack! You…! I can’t! I can’t believe-- _Ok but how?_ ” he sputtered, quite eloquently if that mattered. Which it didn’t.  
  
“I’ve been practicing!” Jack replied with cheer to match the confounded expressions on his family’s faces. “I just got the hang of making them large and stable enough for us to safely pass through, but I don’t know how to tell where they go yet.”  
  
Sam looked carefully between his brother and his friend, before turning back to Jack and implying his suggestion.  
  
“Well… I guess there’s always one way we could find out?”  
  
“Sam _no_ ,” Dean was the first to object. “Are you out of your mind?”  
  
“But Dean!” Sam began the usual argument, “You can’t tell me that Jack being able to just… snap his fingers and make a portal at will--no psychics no _anything_ needed--wouldn’t be an _incredible_ help to us?”  
  
“Yeah! When he can _control it_ !”  
  
“And that’s exactly what we’d be helping him with, Dean!”  
  
Cas sat quietly and contemplatively as the two brothers squabbled over all the risks and rewards and ifs and buts of the proposed method of honing the ability that Jack, meanwhile, was almost regretting having brought up. _Almost._ Even if there was a disagreement about how to most quickly and safely improve it, everyone seemed to be in agreement that it was really freaking cool. Jack snapped his fingers again and the portal disappeared, and he opted to join Cas in waiting for Sam and Dean to settle down.  
  
“Why do we have to go through it to test it? Why not build a… a, a camera on a robot or something and send that in?” Dean argued. “Isn’t that what scientists do when they want to learn about some place really dangerous?”  
  
Sam stopped, mouth still open, a little taken aback that not only had he not thought of such a simple compromise sooner… he hadn’t thought of it at all. But he usually would be the one to suggest such an idea, and so with as much of an approving air as he could gather to minimize any chance of gloating from the usually more reckless Dean, he agreed.  
  
“Yeah. Yeah we could do that.”  
  
“Alright.”  
  
“Alright. I’ll go start looking into what we need to--”  
  
A rustle of feathers.  
  
“--build this, and how we can get a signal to connect it on the other side of the portal and--”  
  
Another rustle of feathers.  
  
“--Jack, how long can you main them right now? Would you be able to--”  
  
“DEAN. SAM.”  
  
They turned toward Cas in unison, both replying with a sheepish and trailing “Wha...t...the…” at the sight of Gabriel, Balthazar, and Crowley just sort of hanging around in the background of a Cas who couldn’t believe his probably many eyes and a Jack who had at some point moved to be next to Cas and looked very confused but happy to see his uncle Gabriel again.  
  
“Hel--”  
  
“Hello, boys,” Gabriel spoke over Crowley with a wink, earning him the sharpest of glares, and a muttered but very venomous “That was _my_ line. That’s _always_ my line!” from the demon.  
  
“I don’t… I don’t understand…” Cas started. “Gabri-- you--, and Balthazar! How are the both of you--”  
  
“Alive?” Crowley finished for him. He moved toward a liquor cabinet as he spoke. “Thanks for the mention, by the way. After all, I have saved your life not once but twice now, and--”  
  
“Cassie. Good to see you’re no longer mad with power,” Balthazar greeted, ignoring the demon just as much as his old friend was. The caution in his voice caused guilt to blossom on Cas’ face as the memory of just how Balthazar lost his life came flooding back. Crowley tried to protest the second interruption, but no one cared as a sudden tension filled the room and all attention was given to Cas and Balthazar.  
  
“Balthazar, I… I can’t begin to express just how...how…”  
  
“How sorry you are?”  
  
Cas paused, and then his frown turned upside down and became the smallest of smiles. With regret losing its ground to some level of confidence, he answered “Yes. But also how very glad I am to see you again.”  
  
There was another pause as they stared at each other, until finally Balthazar gave Cas a smile of his own. This was seen as an invitation to hug from Cas, who stepped toward his friend with open arms only to be held at bay with a hand to the chest as Balthazar looked past him to address Sam and Dean, who were still shocked and now standing.  
  
“He _does_ have all his marbles back, right, boys?”  
  
Cas’ eyes rolled a good degree upward into his head, and moving Balthazar’s hand aside finally pulled him into a hug so tight and eager that it threw the other angel off balance. There was a bit of swaying, and a good amount of back patting, and then Balthazar pulled himself away.  
  
“Alright, alright, that’s enough of that, I think. This isn’t going in the sort of gay direction I’d want it to go,” he said with a final pat to Cas’ shoulder. Cas however hadn’t gotten enough hugs in, so he turned toward Gabriel, pulling him in for one as well. This acted as a call to literal arms as Sam, Dean, and Jack all remembered how their legs function and raced to join in. Crowley stood next to Balthazar, who stepped away from him. Though he was trying to feign merely being insulted, a small sigh escaped his lips. As if on cue, an arm clad in green canvas jacket sleeve reached out from the tangle of people and pulled him in by his expensive shirt collar. Even though it actually made him happy, he made sure to look awkward as he gingerly patted what he guessed was Sam’s back. And not being one to leave people out, Jack pulled Balthazar in as well.  
  
After about a minute or so of solid hugging, the group finally broke apart. Dean brought out drinks for everyone (and Sam brought Jack a soda), and once they were all seated, Gabriel regaled them with the story of how a strange voice had awoken him in what he soon learned was called The Empty. It tried to convince him to “go back to sleep”, and the ruckus from Gabriel’s “nah” somehow managed to awaken Crowley. When Crowley insisted on returning to life infuriated the cosmic entity even more than Gabriel had, the noise had become enough to wake up Balthazar as well. The combined three of them were well more than enough to cause the cosmic entity to hurtle them all back to life on Earth, somewhere in the vicinity of Kettering, England. After a short discussion mostly involving an unsure voucher for Crowley’s claim to have sacrificed his life to stop Lucifer based on what Sam and Dean had told Gabriel, the three of them flew together to the bunker. They appeared outside of it, of course, but Sam had forgotten to lock the door behind him when he returned from his trip to the grocery store. Somehow, it was an unspoken agreement that the best way to proceed forward after that was to to teleport to the room everyone was in so as to appear out of nowhere all at once.  
  
“I was hoping I could bring you back, like I did with Castiel,” Jack told Gabriel, “but I still didn’t really understand how I did it before and I didn’t know if it worked or not.”  
  
“Well I’d say it did. Thanks kiddo,” Gabriel replied.  
  
“So. You must be Jack-- the nephilim we all nearly, and some of us actually, died to keep out of Lucifer’s hands,” Crowley mused.  
  
“I’m sorry, he’s a what?” Balthazar asked incredulously, cupping his hand around his ear and pointing it at Crowley. “What did you just say he is?”  
  
“I’m Jack. I’m a nephilim,” Jack answered him with a happy smile to warm the iciest of hearts. Balthazar still looked fairly surprised, so Sam decided this would be a good time for him to step in and explain.  
  
“He’s family. And to answer you, Crowley, he is.”  
  
“Castiel is my father,” Jack offered as further information. Balthazar’s eyebrows flew up and a gleeful smile spread across his face as he saw his opportunity.  
  
“Really, Cassie! And here I thought Dean was biologically unable to bear children.”  
  
Dean spit his drink out onto the table, and Cas clapped a hand to his forehead.  
  
“No-- That’s not--”  
  
“Yeah, very funny. He’s LUCIFER’S, and his mother’s name is KELLY,” Dean half shouted over Cas’ attempt to clarify Jack’s well-intentioned phrasing.  
  
“I’m only teasing, Dean,” Balthazar answered with amusement, causing Dean’s face to redden more.  
  
Cas cleared his throat and started his explanation again.  
  
“What Jack meant is that he chose me--the three of us actually--to be his family instead of Lucifer.”  
  
“And who are you guys?” Jack asked of Balthazar and Gabriel, and a wave of realization hit everyone else in the room simultaneously that they never did proper introductions.  
  
Crowley smiled at Jack and extended his hand to him. “You can call me Uncle Crowley, seeing as practically family too,” he introduced himself. Jack gladly reached out to shake his hand, but Cas caught it.  
  
“ _No_ , you’re not ‘Uncle Crowley’,” he said firmly and with extra air quotations. But Dean caught the hand that Cas had caught Jack’s with, and interjected.  
  
“No Cas, it’s cool. He’s earned it, don’t you think?” he said, and looking from Cas to Crowley added a fond “Welcome back, Crowley.” Crowley smiled and nodded appreciatively in return.  
  
What followed was a very lengthy account, mostly for Balthazar’s sake, of just how Gabriel was still alive, how the former King of Hell came to be considered family to the Winchesters (Cas and Jack included), and their current plans of helping Jack strengthen his ability to create portals to other worlds. Dean was quick to mention the remotely operated camera plan, and everyone was interested in seeing Jack create another portal. Cheerfully obliging, Jack snapped his fingers and the room was filled with light.  


* * *

  
When they came to, they found themselves in a thick forest. It took a moment before it was realied that somehow they’d winded up in an alternate dimension. Balthazar dusted a leaf off the new jacket the cosmic entity had apparently give him which he didn’t even notice until that moment.  
  
“Well, this is exciting.”  
  
Crowley found it less exciting, given the last time he was in a alternate dimension he sacrificed himself to seal it away. He hoped there would be no need for that this time around.  
  
“Jack… what… did you send us here?” Sam asked him, eyes scanning their new surroundings carefully.  
  
Jack looked at his hands with concern. “I… I don’t know. This hasn’t happened before…” he answered.    
  
“Well we’re here now…” Dean grumbled unhappily. So much for trying to play things safe. At the sight of apologetic look on Jack’s face, he let out a sigh and continued speaking.  
“It’s not your fault, Jack. None of us knew that would or even could happen.”  
  
Jack sighed too, his more disappointed, and ran a hand through his hair.  
  
“What I want to know is why is that everytime we wind up in any alternate dimensions it’s always a forest where we land?” Sam brought up as an important question.  
  
“This time the trees are purple though,” Dean pointed out. He picked a twig out of Cas’ hair. “So at least there’s that.”  
  
“I’ll get us back home,” Jack said. His voice carried a resolve that the Winchesters were proud to hear, but which also made the situation feel just as serious as it probably was going to turn out to be. He snapped his fingers and they were surrounded by another flash of light.  


* * *

  
A roar that was felt through the whole body sounded out from directly behind everyone, and from= not so far away either. The group spun around and found themselves face to face with an enormous dinosaur-looking creature, barreling right at them. Its mouth was wide open, revealing at least three rows jagged teeth which was unanimously and unspokenly decided by everyone to be too many teeth. Jack snapped his fingers, but nothing happened. He snapped them again, and again, but still there was nothing. Finally, Cas grabbed him by his arm and pulled him into a run, which happened to be what the rest of them had just started doing.  
  
“I didn’t get to say anything about the last dimension we were in!” Gabriel complained as they fled.  
  
“Is that really the most important thing right now Gabriel?!” Sam shouted. “And wait a minute! We have two angels and a demon capable of flight--”  


* * *

  
“Whoa what the heck--” Dean said as he nearly  


* * *

  
Suddenly everything around them was very blue and very wet. This time they appeared to be in the middle of an ocean.  
  
“Oh come on!” Sam yelled.  
  
Gabriel swam up next to him, followed by Crowley. “I don’t know,” he hummed, ‘Give us a bit of time and we could probably make a little tropical paradise of our very own out here.” The only reply Sam gave him was a stare that lacked even just a tiny amount of amusement.  
  
“I’m sorry guys, I don’t know what’s happening…” Jack said. Cas kicked extra hard to steady himself in the water as he lifted his hand to pat Jack on the shoulder reassuringly.  
  
“It’s not your fault Jack,” he offered, hoping that more people reiterating Dean’s earlier words would help him. Jack gave him a half hearted smile.  
  
“I hate to interrupt, but might we consider finding land at some point?” Balthazar interrupted. “I suggest those who can’t fly pair up with someone who can.”  
  
Crowley muttered to himself as he swam toward Sam about his Armani suit. He grabbed Sam’s shoulder and waited for the others to pair up.  


* * *

  
Dean fidgeted about as much as he possibly could. There had been no flash of light, and yet here they all were, in yet another random dimension.  
  
“Guys?” he asked,  
  
“Yes,” came a reply that was the equivalent of when you try to throw all the darts at the center of the board, but they can’t all hit the bullseye, so they sort of cluster around it.  
  
“I think I’m a sofa.”  
  
“...I think we know how you feel,” Crowley answered as panic ensued around him. Very much thankfully this time, there was another flash of light.  


* * *

  
Everyone found themselves in the bunker again, the drinks all still exactly where they ahd left them, as if nothing had ever happened. A ribbon of orange light that they hadn’t had time to see form had fizzled itself closed, and still in a good amount of shock, they all took their seats again.  
  
“Let’s… let’s never do that again,” Cas decided.  
  
And everyone agreed.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is for [spncoldesthits](http://spncoldesthits.tumblr.com/post/178649635960/infinite-universes-october-prompt-posting-dates) of course! I'm glad I had time to work on this one, because it matched up with an idea I've had for a fic for a while now. What I did was turn on my old laptop and type up the dimension travelling there. Every time it shut off or the screen timed out for no reason, it was time to change dimensions. The keyboard also has troubles, which is why the typos increase greatly during their travels. I thought it'd be fun to leave them in though. :P Also, I didn't have time to make it as crazy (and numerous) as originally wanted, but I still wanted to have them go through the one scene from The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy at least, because of the dimension shenanigans of the infinite improbability drive. And even though this wasn't as crazy as I wanted to make it, it was still fun to write!


End file.
